Blog Archives

Download a printable, one-page PDF version of this article and chart. Vowels and vowel sounds are not the same thing. In the English alphabet, there are 5 vowels: A, E, I, O, U. However there are many more vowel sounds.…

This is the third in the blog series Singing as Storytelling. There are many big name singers doing cover versions of the classic hits. It’s easy money, because the songs are already well known favourites, and the singers already have…

This is the second in the blog series Singing as Storytelling. The majority of singers – famous ones as well as amateurs – work hard to produce a stylish and technically excellent performance in terms of musical delivery, whatever the…

Jule Styne (writer of ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’, ‘Three Coins in a Fountain’, and ‘Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!’) famously said: “A song without words is just a piece of music.” The singer’s job is…

This blog post is all about resonance, and how singers manipulate it to their advantage. I recently discovered these fabulous videos on YouTube showing people singing inside an MRI scanner, meaning that we can see what is happening inside their…

This is the first of a series of blog posts that I am calling Singing as Storytelling. When I was starting out as a singer, my first singing teacher told me: “If you’re lucky, the people who listen to you…

This post is an invitation to take another look at my earlier post called Reading List (8 July 2014). I’ve added a number of books on voice science and pedagogy that have come out of the USA. If you want…

The ‘3 + 1’ Map of Singing- Pt 1 describes how Breathing management, Vibrating source (vocal folds), the Resonating system, and Inner Life (thinking and feeling) all play a role in singing. It is not uncommon for uninitiated singers to…

After a performance, we may go through a whole range of feelings. We need to allow those to subside before we do any serious evaluation of our performance. We should assume that we will experience one or all of ……

Everyday breathing in Everyday breathing out Singers breathing in Singers breathing out Breathing for singing is an extremely important topic, and there are many subtleties to learn about it. So we are going to work on it step by step.…